


That's Okay

by static_abyss



Series: Soul Marks [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Platonic Relationships, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-28
Updated: 2015-04-28
Packaged: 2018-03-26 04:01:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3836269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/static_abyss/pseuds/static_abyss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It's not uncommon," Deaton says. "Many people don't have soulmates."</p><p>"But most do," Derek says.</p><p>"Most do," Deaton agrees. "But just because <em>most</em> do, doesn't mean that <em>all</em> do. You just happen to be one of the people who don't have a soul mark."</p>
            </blockquote>





	That's Okay

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NeaHS](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeaHS/gifts).



> This fic is dedicated to the commenter who wanted to know about Derek's part in my [soul mark fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3175810). Thank you for asking, and this fic is for you, and for anyone else who wondered about Derek. Please see the notes at the end for more detail on the underage tag and the Kate/Derek part of this fic. Also a note, the non-Derek centric pairings are mostly implied.
> 
> The title for this fic is from the song That's Okay from The Hush Sound. It's my personal favorite song for Derek. Everyone should go listen to it, and cry about Derek Hale with me.

"How does it work?" Derek asks his mother, when he is ten.

"It's a guarantee," she says, smoothing Derek's hair away from his forehead. "A soul mark means that you will meet your soulmate, sometime in your lifetime."

Derek ducks his head. "I don't have a mark," he whispers, shame making his face hot. 

His mother tugs on his hair, playfully, and smiles when Derek looks at her. "No," she says. "Not yet."

  


* * *

 

"Why?" he asks Laura, when he is eleven and still unmarked.

She smiles reassuringly at him. "Maybe they haven't been born yet," she says.

  


* * *

 

When he is thirteen, Derek has almost given up hope.

"There are a lot of reasons for why you don't have a mark," Cora says.

"Like what?" Derek asks, wanting to believe her.

"I don't know," Cora shrugs. "Ask mom."

  


* * *

 

When Derek is fourteen, he asks Deaton.

"It's not uncommon," Deaton says. "Many people don't have soulmates."

"But most do," Derek says.

Deaton stares, unblinking, and Derek wants to look away from his too knowing look. Deaton's always given off a vibe, as though he could read every thought in Derek's brain. The older Derek got, the more it became clear that Deaton was just perceptive, which reminded Derek too much of his mother. 

"Most do," Deaton says, finally. "But just because _most_ do, doesn't meant that _all_ do. You just happen to be one of the people who don't have a soul mark."

"And?" Derek asks, waiting for the good news.

"And what?" Deaton asks.

" _Why_?"

Deaton sighs. "I know things that anyone can learn from reading and researching," he says. "I am your mother's emissary, but, despite popular belief, I do _not_ have the answers to everything. I don't know _why_ some people don't have soulmates. I just know that some _don't_."

"And I happen to be one of them," Derek says, shoulders slumping.

Deaton nods. Derek makes to go, most of him wishing that he hadn't come in the first place. If he hadn't listened to Laura, he could still pretend as though there was hope for him. Now, Derek can't even lie to himself. 

"You know," Deaton says, just as Derek makes it to the door. "Not having a mark doesn't mean that you can't live a happy, fulfilling life."

Derek turns and raises an eyebrow at Deaton. "Yeah?" he says. "And how would you know?"

Deaton smiles. "I don't have a mark either," he says.

  


* * *

 

Derek meets Kate when he is sixteen. She is older and beautiful, and she pays attention to him, sits with him after school, and asks about his life. He thinks he loves her, knows for sure when she tells him about her mark.

"You don't have a soul mate?" Derek asks.

Kate shakes her head. She is the fifth person Derek has met who has admitted to not having a soulmate. Usually--unless it's Deaton--when Derek asks, the people without marks are just confused, maybe worried. But when he looks up at Kate, she looks incredibly sad for some reason.

"What's wrong?" he asks. 

"It's nothing," she says, turning her face away.

Derek is sixteen and nervous, but his heart aches for her. He reaches out to touch her arm. Kate shivers. Derek can feel it along his fingertips.

"I'm sorry," she says, turning away from him.

And Derek thinks he knows what it is, because he's been there too. He thinks she's ashamed, because she's different, because not having a mark means that she might not deserve the same happiness as everyone else. So Derek takes her hand and waits for her to look at him.

"It's alright," he tells her. "I don't have one either."

Kate looks at him for a long time. "You're lucky," she says, rolling up her left pant leg. "Not having a soulmate is better than never being able to meet yours."

Derek doesn't understand, not even when Kate points out the words on her left shin. They're a gray so light, Derek has to lean down to see them, and even then, it's hard to make out what the words say.

"Marry me," Kate says, and Derek glances up, surprised. "They used to say, 'marry me,'" she says.

"But why are they so light?"

"Soulmates die," she says.

Derek's too shocked to say anything at first. He stares at the words on Kate's leg and doesn't understand. 

"My mother said the mark was a guarantee," he says, without thinking.

Kate's smile is sad.

It should scare him, Derek thinks, to know that he might have had a soulmate, and they were just never born. But the longer he looks at the barely visible words on Kate's leg, the calmer he is. It's comforting knowing that it's not that he didn't deserve a soulmate, it's that other things might have gotten in the way.

"Marks aren't a guarantee," Kate says, pulling Derek out of his thoughts. "Mine just means that I don't have a soulmate. That I never will."

"It's okay," Derek says, because he is young and Kate is beautiful. "I can be your soulmate."

  


* * *

 

The night of the Hale fire, six soul marks fade.

A day later, Kate leaves.

 

* * *

  


Derek is twenty-three when he meets Jennifer Blake.

"You can stop being soul mates with someone?" Derek asks her. 

Jennifer looks down at back of her left hand, at the impossibly light gray, "Will you be mine?" 

"No," she says, finally. "Well, yes."

She pauses to look at Derek. Her brown eyes are wide and sad, but she's the one who takes Derek's hand. 

"You never forget your soul mate when they leave," she says. "So the mark is always there. But sometimes, two people can become so different, they're no longer good for each other. Soul marks disappear that way, too."

"So your soul mate changed?" Derek asks. 

Jennifer sighs, something tired and sad. "Yes," she says. "They did."

  


* * *

 

Derek is still twenty-three when he learns that two people never really stop being soulmates.

"What happened?" Derek asks when he sees the bandage on Jennifer's left side, right along her ribs. 

She's lying down on his bed, her black hair fanned out beneath her. Her eyes are warm as she looks at him.

"I have a new mark," she whispers, her hands gentle on Derek's face.

Derek stares at her, his heart hammering away in his chest. He wants to ask her what the mark says, wants to know if it's possible to have a soul mate who doesn't have a mark.

"It's not you," Jennifer says, and Derek feels her regret in the way she touches his face.

"How do you know?" he asks her, anyway, muddling his words against her shoulder.

Jennifer's hands are soothing on the back of his head, her fingers gently running through his hair. 

"It's a nickname," she says. "And only one person ever called me that."

"Tell me the name," Derek says, lifting his head just enough to press his cheek against hers. "Maybe it _is_ me."

"I'm sorry, Derek," she says. "It isn't you."

Derek lifts his head to look at her. She turns her head, but Derek sees the sorrow there. He aches the same way he did when he was young and first met Kate, because he understands what the look on Jennifer's face means. Derek isn't her soul mate, because she doesn't want him to be.

"Oh," Derek says.

Jennifer looks at him. "I'm sorry," she says.

But Derek shakes his head. "No," he says, kissing her forehead. "Don't be. Just go find your soulmate."

Jennifer smiles at him, and Derek tries to memorize it. 

Neither of them move for a while, and Derek lets himself believe that it's because Jennifer doesn't want to go. But she moves first, easing off the bed and pulling her shirt back on. She grabs her coat and walks back to Derek.

"You'll find them," she says, pressing a kiss to his cheek.

Derek inhales the smell of her perfume, something soft and powdery. "Thank you," he says.

"Don't thank me," Jennifer says, smiles, and leaves.

-

When Jennifer turns out to be the Darach, Derek understands why she told him not to thank her. When Kali turns out to be Jennifer's soulmate, Derek isn't the least bit surprised. 

 

* * *

  


Derek is twenty-four, when Stiles pushes his way into Derek's life. Derek really hadn't expected anything less.

"You have a soulmate," Derek says, when he sees Stiles's right palm.

"Yeah," Stiles says. "So? Scott's dating someone right now, and I _was_ trying to make out with you."

Derek frowns. " _You're_ Scott's soulmate?"

"Hey," Stiles says, sounding slightly offended. "No need to sound so surprised. I love Scott."

Derek sighs, and turns away. 

"Hey," Stiles says again, softer this time, coming around to look at Derek. "Hey there, big guy. What's wrong?"

Derek raises an eyebrow at Stiles, but doesn't turn away. Derek doesn't know how to explain how little sense it makes to him to know one's soulmate and not be with them. He doesn't know how to tell Stiles that not having a soul mark, means that anyone, with a mark, that Derek dates is eventually going to leave him. Stiles is eventually going to go.

So instead, he asks. "If you know Scott's your soulmate, why are you guys dating other people?"

"First of all," Stiles says. "I didn't say anything about dating you."

Derek just gives him an unimpressed look.

"Okay, okay," Stiles says, raising his hands as if to surrender. 

He exhales and runs a hand through his hair. "Listen, Derek," he says. "Scott and I both know we're going to be together forever. We didn't need any mark to tell us that. But we're _eighteen_. Eighteen is too young to settle down and have Scott's werewolf babies. If we did, we'd probably hate each other by the time we were twenty-five. I don't want that, and I _know_ Scott doesn't want that."

"So you decided to just ignore the fact that you're soulmates."

"No," Stiles says. "We decided to be the crazy kids my dad's always complaining about, first, and soulmates, later."

Derek frowns. He's never thought about people who find their soulmates early in life. He'd assumed that once someone found their soulmate, everything would be easy. Derek knows if he ever had a soulmate, he wouldn't waste time seeing other people. There was no point, really, if at the end he was just going to end up with his soulmate, anyway. But then, maybe it's because Derek never had the certainty that Stiles has.

"What if Scott finds someone else?" Derek asks, wanting to see if he's right. 

Stiles shrugs. "Maybe he does. Or, maybe I do. Or maybe," he says, locking eyes with Derek. "We both find the same person."

The security between soulmates must feel amazing, Derek thinks, even as Stiles kisses him. 

Derek would give anything to have the confidence Stiles has in Scott, to know what it was like to just _know_ that no matter what happened, there would always be someone waiting for him.

  


* * *

 

Stiles and Derek stop seeing each other when Stiles turns nineteen and transfers to a school in New York. It's a clean break, because neither of them had expected their relationship to end in marriage. But it hurts nonetheless, and Derek can't really look Scott in the eye for a while. 

But Scott is a good person, so he goes to see Derek, two weeks after Stiles leaves.

"What's wrong?" Scott asks.

Derek is in his loft, standing in the middle of the open space, and Scott is walking down the steps. Derek doesn't know what to say.

"Is it Stiles?" Scott asks, genuine concern in his voice. 

It is and it isn't, so Derek says nothing.

"Hey," Scott says, reaching for Derek's shoulder once he gets close enough. "It's alright."

Derek stares at Scott, his entire body tense. Derek isn't expecting a fight, but the tenderness in Scott's eyes is making him nervous. 

"They're not all going to leave you," Scott says, and Derek wonders when Scott grew up so much. 

"How do you know?" Derek asks, and it's just a different version of the question he's been asking all his life. 

Scott's expression softens to something Derek can't put a name to. It makes him feel as though he's ten, again, and he's asking his mother why he doesn't have a soul mark.

"You'll always have the pack," Scott says.

He leans forward, slow so that Derek can watch him, and presses a kiss to Derek's cheek. "You'll always have me," he says.

Derek knows he's never going to stop looking for a soulmate that doesn't exist, but he understands what Scott is saying. He gets that soulmate or not, there are already people who love him. 

 

* * *

  


"You shouldn't worry," Kira says when she is twenty-two and Derek is twenty-eight. "I love you enough to make up for eighty soulmates."

Derek looks at the bands around her ankles, the black "you love her" and "is that obsidian?" He appreciates the sincerity in her voice and the earnestness in her expression. He believes her, just like he believes that Scott will always be there for Derek, like he believes the pack won't abandon him. But Derek knows Kira doesn't mean it the way she means it when she tells Lydia and Allison that she loves them.

"Hey, Derek," Kira says, as though she knows just what Derek is thinking.

Derek looks at her. She's grinning at him from where she's sitting in the middle of his loft floor. She pats the floor next to her, and waits until Derek sits to keep talking.

"There are different kinds of love," she says, taking his hand. 

Derek stares at the floor. He knows how this conversation is going to go. He lets Kira talk, anyway.

"Soulmates aren't just romantic," she says. "They can be platonic. Like two old friends who know they'll be friends always."

Derek scoffs. "Like Scott and Stiles?"

Kira shakes her head. "No," she says, digging in her jacket pocket for something. "Like you and me."

Derek feels his expression soften, even as he watches Kira find what she was looking for. He's known her for less time than he has known the others, but from the moment Derek met her, they had clicked into place together. He was fond of her the minute he met her, because he saw his youngest brother in her. And then, she'd just wormed her way into his life with her caring eyes, her awkwardness, and the way she refused to be intimidated by him. 

Derek knows that if anyone is his platonic soulmate, it's Kira.

"Be my soulmate," she says, holding out her hand. "For real."

Derek just stares at the obsidian throwing star in Kira's palm. It's shining black, each blade sharpened into fine points. It looks as though it weighs nothing, the way Kira holds it out. But it's one of Kira's tails, one of her _lives_. 

"I can't," he says, finally, his voice hoarse.

Kira smiles at him, her expression soft, but knowing. "Yes, you can," she says. "Every soulmate has to leave a mark."

Later, once Kira leaves and Derek is alone, he'll think about what she said, and why she phrased it the way she did. He'll sit and think about the people who have walked through his life, and he'll realize that there has never been a person, who hasn't left some kind of mark on Derek's life. He'll hide the obsidian throwing star in a place only he will ever find, and understand what Kira is telling him.

That, maybe, the reason Derek doesn't have a soul mark, is because it would be impossible to fit that many marks on Derek's body.

**Author's Note:**

> The underage tag is for the Kate/Derek part of this fic, since Kate is well over the age of consent and Derek is only sixteen. Nothing happens between the two, except for a conversation about soulmates, and at one point, Derek expresses the wish to be Kate's soulmate, but I thought I should put this here in case the whole Kate/Derek thing is a no for anybody.


End file.
